On Learning From The Mistakes Of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:
"It was kind of a mess, wasn’t it? Look, the movie had some good things in it and it was entertaining and it did very well, but it also failed in some key ways. I learned from it. And now with this third movie we’re going back to basics and I absolutely believe this is going to be a much better film than the second one."
On Why The Second Installment Failed To Live Up To The Expectations Of Fans:
"I’m still having fun and especially with this movie. Look, we got burned on the last movie. The big thing was the writers strike, it hurt the film and it made it hard on everybody. We had three weeks to get our story and, really, we were going into the movie without a script. It’s tough to do that. It was too big of a movie. There were too many endings or too many things that felt like endings. There was so much animation [in the visual effects postproduction work], too, and we ran out of time. We used the schedule of the first movie for the second movie but on the second one way more labor was needed for the animation. And then it felt like we were writing the script in the edit room, trying to put together a story."
On What To Expect From The Third Movie:
"I think we have something to prove with this third one. We’re back to basics. The second one was something going on inside of Sam, the way he’s affected and feeling, and that’s a hard thing to do. It’s more mystical, in a way. This one, there’s nothing mystical about it. It’s a good old-fashioned mystery and it’s a tougher movie...it’s funny but it’s not a wisecrack-funny; it’s funnier in the situation."
On Casting A New Female Lead In The Form Of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley:
"I don’t want to talk about it, but we obviously replaced our girl, and by everything I see we fared well. Look, I will say that I think we have a better cast with this third movie than we’ve ever had."
On Filming Transformers: Dark Of The Moon In 3D:
"I visited Jim [Cameron's set] on ‘Avatar’ and I just saw all the blue screen and the big cameras and I’m like, ‘This is so not me.’ So it’s kind of scary, all right? Especially because I do real-world stuff … this is really hard for me because I’m a die-hard film guy, anamorphic old-school lenses, and there’s nothing more beautiful than anamorphic lenses to me. So going digital was just kind of crass for me."
"Have you ever seen these cameras? They’re big. You’ve got the mirrors — what you’re doing is splitting a mirror, so you get weird refractions. It cuts light. The second camera is always going to be a touch softer because it’s going through a mirror. It sees reflections a little weird. It’ll catch a glare on one eye but it won’t on the other so it will kind of jump out at you sometimes in 3-D."
Be sure to head on over to
The Los Angeles Times: Hero Complex for more details from Michael Bay on
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon which is set to be released on July 1, later this year!